A Year of Rain was released into Early Access in early November 2019. In early February 2020, Daedalic released a statement saying development would be on hold indefinitely, despite the game being fundamentally unfinished.

I'll keep my actual review short: This game had real potential to eventually become something of a mid-budget Warcraft 3[eu.shop.battle.net]. However, it was released in a state that made it not worth buying JUST YET – which probably led directly to the low sales and small player base which the developers explicitly cited as the main reasons for abandoning the project.

What irks me is this: I really liked all the bits that were finished. Art, character and world design, soundtrack – all of these were quite good and I enjoyed the campaign in particular... up until the virtually non-existent AI and the terrible pathfinding made me go "ok, I'll just wait until the developers fix these core gameplay issues." Unfortunately, they never did, instead opting to simply abandon the game after only 3 months of Early Access. They never gave A Year of Rain the chance it deserved.

Perhaps when you read this review in some distant future, the developers have actually picked the game back up, finally finishing it. It might even be brilliant then.

But if you're thinking about buying A Year of Rain right now, please take the time to look for developer updates since February 2020. Look for major content and gameplay updates, not just hotfixes. If you can't find any, then the game is probably still unfinished and definitely not worth full price.

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I've recently picked up the game again after 3+ years of being bitter over Daedalic just outright abandoning it. So let me give you some more in-depth information on the current state of A Year of Rain:

As the final update to the game in 2020 basically just made it playable without relying on Daedalic's servers, there haven't really been any improvements when it comes to the gameplay systems. Every bit of criticism you'll find in the Steam reviews from 3+ years ago still applies, sadly.

That being said, they also lowered the price and A Year of Rain is now regularly discounted at -90% on top of that. I'd say the current regular asking price is still a bit steep, as the game still has all of these basic gameplay problems which evidently WILL NEVER be patched out. But at a -90% discount, I think it may be worth trying out, even if it's just to mourn the potential the game once had. As I've hinted at in my original review, the content that's actually in the game has a lot going for it, particularly the fully scripted campaign.

Just be aware that while the presentation of A Year of Rain is spot-on (graphics, full voice acting, cutscenes, soundtrack, gorgeous artwork), the bad pathfinding, bad AI and lack of a save system tend to ruin the experience: The bad AI makes interestingly designed missions blander than they should be, the pathfinding is a constant bother and the lack of any save system whatsoever means you'll play a multi-stage mission for 30+ minutes, only to have one of your hero units get killed, resulting in mission failure.

Finally, here's a summary of the content you get if you buy A Year of Rain today:

● 3 fully completed factions for use in skirmish/multiplayer
● 1 fully completed campaign (9 missions) for the 'human' faction (with a cliffhanger ending for the remaining 2 campaigns which were never delivered)
● 2 tutorial missions
● 6 skirmish/multiplayer maps, 3 of which are 'beta'
● 2 survival maps
● A strategy guide and an artbook, both of which really show off just how much love went into the original design of the world and characters.

Game is abandoned in a completely unfinished state.

The game launched with heaps of potential but a deluge of issues, from broken pathfinding to single digit performance in the late game despite being at best comparable to Warcraft 3 or Dawn of War 1 technically. The Devs acknowledged these issues day 1 and promised these issues had already been fixed or were in the process of being fixed. The patch never came.

The Devs went completely silent over the launch window, killing whatever little community existed. The next thing the Devs announced was that the game was cancelled due to a lack of long term interest (because they never even bothered to make the game playable despite promissing to have all the fixes ready).

Only a partial campaign exists, complete with an utterly nonsensical story and completely unfinished/unplayable levels that are near impossible without repeated playthroughs thanks to the lack of even a basic save feature.

Absolute garbage dev/publisher, don't even consider supporting them.

if you like warcraft 3, you will like this game, but in a few months.

Pro: -great campaign plot, feels a bit indian to me
-roadmap for the early acces visible with priorities set up!(big one)
-ladder system already implemented
-everything is co-op(human or AI)
-has premade builds like in league of legends that you can choose from
-fast paced
-great leveling system
-dev team very responsive @ discord and generally people are nice
-low graphics, BUT game runs super smooth even at max settings.

CONS: -pathfinding(biggest one) is one of the worst i saw in rts
-a bit pricy for what it offers AT THIS MOMENT
-literally warcraft 3 witha twist (i feel like this is a con, i dont like copy pasting)
-they look greedy as they instantly introduced a supporter pack on top of the game.

I will not request a refund because i think this has potential.i hope devs really made this for passion and not only for money.

Bottomline: if 20 euro is something you can easily afford, then go for it.But if 20 euro is more than a night out worth of money, then atm no.Have a great day.hope i didnt offend anyone

this game needs to be taken down from steam. it was abandoned by the devs right after launch and is not really playable in this state, mostly because of the poor pathfinding of your units. they block each other constantly and get stuck cuz their hit boxes are 4 times bigger than they are.

it's a shame this game got abandoned cuz it has lots of potential and can be really fun in coop, if you don't need to babysit your units.

+ Easy to learn how to play, hard to accomplish mastery over all of its elements.

+ The story is rich, taking good care of voice acting, pacing, and consistent writing.

+ Healthy amount of factions and heroes to choose, each with their characteristics.

+ The campaign missions are very creative, each of then having particular objectives and featuring a different experience from the previous one.

-The low player base makes it hard to get into multiplayer matches most of the time.

-Lack of content highlights that while it is a good game, it still has a long way to go before it becomes a complete product.

-The game forces co-op both in multiplayer and singleplayer, and unfortunately, the ally AI poorly performs when it comes to helping the player.

- Needs some fixes and polishing, situations such as units getting stuck in walls are common, and the game could benefit from patches addressing these issues.


A Year of Rain is an RTS early access game developed by Daedalic entertainment, with all its aspects revolving around the forced 2 VS 2 element. I would say this is good as it gives the game an identity of its own while adding a new spin to the genre. With a rich story, good gameplay, and the right amount of diversity in its heroes and factions, this game is decent in its current state with the possibility of becoming a great product.


The gameplay is like that of Warcraft III, featuring armies composed of units and heroes. The common types of heroes are paladins, rangers, and mages. Each of the types of heroes stands out; paladins and tanks are great at harassing opponents and keeping units alive, for example. They offer their armies defensive maneuvers. In my multiplayer experience, the majority of my opponents choose paladin as their character.

Rangers true to their name attack from a distance with powerful abilities. Like shadows, they can dispatch individuals' enemies with ease or mark them so that they suffer additional damage from sources. They also have dashes as an escape tool. Finally, mages and sorcerers have some powerful spells, which can wipe out several units in seconds.

Something that caught my interest in the gameplay is that hero levels are essential for success in a battle. In multiplayer, heroes level up mostly by clearing jungle camps set throughout the map. These are finite resources that players will fight for as a high-level hero can make change the outcome of the war. A low leveled hero will lack abilities which will drastically damper their potential.

Each faction has its fantastic visuals with buildings ranging from castles to living dinosaurs. While there is some common ground between them, they each have their type of units and strategies that contribute to different experiences in the gameplay.

Another difference compared to other RTS's in the multiplayer is that in A Year of Rain, if one player is defeated, both players will lose the match. It forces 2 VS 2 heavily because it wants the player to care for their teammate and to be aware that this is a game of cooperation. How a player works together with their team will create different results overall. It makes the game more dynamic and fun as it enforces teamwork.

Apart from those distinctions, A Year of Rain behaves like the usual RTS. You build an army to defeat your opponents. What will be your path to victory of your downfall comes to how you make your army. How you use your hero's tools and your approach to the situation, knowing when to attack or what type of action to take during decisive moments.


The game will have over three different chapters in its story, with one of them being complete in the game as of now. The current episode follows the House of Rupah, being led in an expedition by their leader Lord Jaidee Rupah. To give some context: Jaidee's goal is to bring peace to the shattered south, a land far away from his current territory. To unite it under his banner, he does not see this as an act of conquest but rather a gift for future generations.

The story has a good plot twist, significant moments, and it gets better the more you play. With cutscenes, illustrations, and voice acting, giving it life and perspectives to different points of view. It makes you crave that feeling of wanting to know what will happen next, like in a book or a cliffhanger, and it overcomes my expectations of it.

It does end abruptly since the game is not a finished product. Still, the developed team tailored an excellent narrative that has great potential when all its pieces come together. The other two chapters will be focusing on different factions while keeping critical characters in the story. It holds a promising future as valuable content if the quality displayed in the early access version is maintained.

Another thing of the story is the campaign missions, the layout and situations being throw to the player is creative. Without spoiling too much, the player can find themselves exploring jungles. Hard-pressed by unique mechanics, facing plot twists in the middle of a mission that can change goals and more. I enjoyed playing through these as each chapter tries to differ from the previous one. The singleplayer in this game is fun and enjoyable at all times.


What makes A Year of Rain unique is that it holds a lot of promise for the future and that it has a considerable amount of diversity in its cast and factions. The game is already good; it just has a lot of potentials to become something more significant. It is still too early to say how it will play out. However, even if the game were not to archive its target audience in the player base, it could still be worth to get it just for the singleplayer.


A Year of Rain is an excellent early access game if you are into MOBA or RTS's you could give it a try. If you are into both, you should seriously consider getting it. It does have its fair share of issues, but the developer can patch them, so they are more of a temporal thing. What I think the game needs more right now is content, not in terms of characters or units specifically, but more in map variety and the chapters of the story. As of its current state, it is a good buy. I think the price is fair for the amount of content so far, and it will only increase with time.

This product was reviewed using a key provided by the developer or publisher.

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I feel extremely betrayed by them not finishing it...
I do now understand why they didn't finish it.
I know why there were low number nubers of players, but guess why. it's not because the game was unwanted, oh no no no... a new rts like this was extremely wanted, but it simply wasn't finished, so 98% of people who wanted to buy it said nah mate, I'll wait untill it's finished. sadly they game up, thus the game was never finished and my money was taken and 98% are missing an rts they wanted...

The devs gave up. Don't waste your time.

The good: Being a warcraft 3 clone isn't necessarily bad. Although the similarities are just too many, you can ignore them and enjoy the graphics and the good attempt at creating the heroes and the abilities as well as the good voice acting. The price is also alright.

The bad: Balancing is an issue. You will lose battles on casual difficulty and there is no save game. You could call it a progressive idea for a RTS if it wasn't for the pathfinding.

The ugly: Pathfidning is a disaster. It is very rare that your units will go the way you want them to and very frequent that they will get stuck somewhere that they can never leave. With no hope of ever escaping, adding to your pop limit and with no save game, you have to replay the whole mission... Sad times indeed.

The verdict: Although the game is decent in some aspects, pathfinding is too horrible to overlook. A failed attempt at a RTS: 3/10

I would recommend this game if you can grab it for $5 as I did, it was a nice time sink and its pretty fun as is.

A couple things I would note before buying;

Pros:

Love the approach on the art style.

Good Soundtrack

Good Campaign Story, what's there of it.

Likeable "Hero Characters"

Fun Gameplay, enough for me to finish the Campaign on Hard.

Charming in a rough around the edges and cracked through the center kind of way

Cons:

AI has absolutely terrible pathfinding as is, utterly terrible.

There are some maps and levels that pathfinding does not exist at all, some parts of the maps are just not traverse-able, units making obnoxious map wide loop arounds.

Units and Resources get stuck in cliffs, trees, underground and you are unable to move them afterwards, effectively needing to kill them and just re-train.

Game has issues selecting units in a rapid manner and will not always pick up your actions, an extension of this state is also the game runs extremely rough, even on Ultra High-End Systems. During certain levels and skirmishes, when there was no more than 30-40 units on the field and not a lot of effects, I would see FPS drops down to 10-15 from 165 almost out of nowhere. This effect happens no matter the graphics settings.

Quick System Info:

Ryzen 3900X - Liquid Cooled
MSI RTX 2080TI - Liquid Cooled
32GB G.SKILL Ram
Gen 4 Sabrent NVME SSD 2TB

It's like Warcraft 3 but with cool additional features like only one hero, no items, and the worst pathfinding I've ever seen in an RTS.